grey_lady had decided we'd be best off hitting Tesco's after 9am to avoid the rush hour crowds. It was the token day of rain my whole trip. Their Tesco's is a nice-sized supermarket. It reminded me of some of our larger Safeway or Albertson's stores. They had some kind of gooseberries I'd never seen, and they had ugli fruit, which I grew up on back east but have only seen once in California. Had we not been going away for the weekend I'd have snagged some of the fruit. Instead, I grabbed a few boxes of Splenda tablets (we don't get it in tablet form in the US), some varieties of instant hot chocolate we don't get in the US, and a bag of poppadums because I like them. After a quick lunch of pasta, we loaded their car (notably leaving behind "Fido") and headed to the con.I noticed the propensity of buildings made of brick. Lots of open space, and lots of brick houses. We hardly have any brick houses in California because they have this distressing tendency to crumble and fall during earthquakes. I also learned they still use miles in the UK (Canada uses kilometres). We stopped at a rest stop, where I picked up another diet Coke and some sugar free shortbread.
rdmaughan pointed out that shortbread is Scottish rather than British. I felt a tad stupid for having blurred the difference.We arrived at the con around the same time as
unclechristo, who remembered me from GAFilk and gave me a big hug. After we all checked in I headed down to the pub area and ran into lots of folks and met many more, including vaurien, rinioth, plaid_dragon, pola_bear and her sister, Anna (whose LJ name I don't know offhand), 
auntie_marion, Rhodri, keristor, filkerdave, bardling, roja, shannachie, katyhh, fleetfootmike, Anne, Annie and Tim Walker, oreouk, demoneyes, most of the filkers from the Tun, Peggi and Ken Warner-Lalonde, Kathy and Leo Sands, and cadhla, for whom I had a delivery from California.We grabbed dinner at the hotel, then since the packets needed stuffing,
billroper, Gretchen, and I proceeded to do it. billroper went way beyond the call of duty as GOH. After we'd stuffed packets, folks registered, I signed up for the Ropers' improv workshop. Then we had the first concerts. First it was Yooh and Katy, followed by Sibylle, then the Suttons. All were wonderful. Yooh and Katy always amaze me, Sibylle does incredible wordplay in English (and it's not even her first language!), and the Suttons put on a lively show. After that I was too tired to filk and instead hit the hotel pub, where I got to meet delennara and puggie. Both were delightful. I managed to talk the pub into feeding me a plate of cheeses and biscuits, and I was finally snapping out of hypoglycemic shock -- just enough to make it to bed. 